On the twenty-sixth of July, the Church keeps the memorial of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Which is to say, and it is worth letting the strangeness of the sentence land, that this is the feast of the grandparents of Jesus. God, entering the world, gave Himself what every child receives: not only a mother, but a family behind her, a house she grew up in, and hands that taught her.
Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation.Ecclesiasticus 44:1, Douay-Rheims
Names kept by memory
Honesty first, because this feast rewards it: the Gospels never name Mary's parents. The names Joachim and Anne come to us from ancient tradition, written down as early as the second century, within living memory's reach of the apostolic age. The Church has honored them by those names ever since, in the East from her earliest centuries and in the West for well over a thousand years. What Scripture guarantees is the substance behind the names: Mary did not fall from the sky. She had a father and a mother, a childhood, a home. Grace grew up in a house, like wheat in a field someone else had plowed.
Tradition fills in a story the heart recognizes: a couple grown old without children, long prayer, and an answer beyond anything they asked. Whatever the details, one thing the Church teaches outright, and it is staggering: the Immaculate Conception happened in St. Anne's womb. When Mary began to exist, preserved from all sin from the first instant, the place where that singular grace entered the world was the body of this ordinary, elderly, praying woman. No one has ever hosted a miracle more quietly.
The house where Mary learned to pray
The old painters loved one scene above all: St. Anne teaching the child Mary to read the Scriptures, the girl's finger on the page, the mother's hand guiding hers. It is tradition rather than record, but it tells a truth as solid as anything in a chronicle. The woman who would answer an archangel with be it done unto me according to thy word learned the word somewhere. Somebody taught her the psalms she would one day weave into the Magnificat. Faith is not manufactured fresh in each generation; it is handed down, hand over hand, like a bowl passed along a table.
Every reader of this Journal is standing at the end of such a chain. For many of us the Rosary itself arrived that way, from a grandmother's hands, beads worn smooth by someone else's prayers before they ever reached ours. Joachim and Anne are the patrons of exactly that transaction, the oldest one in the Church: an older generation pressing the faith, gently and stubbornly, into a younger one.
The grandparents' feast
Devotion to St. Anne has been enormous for centuries. Pilgrims still stream to her great shrines, Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec above all, where the walls are hung with the crutches of the healed. She is invoked by mothers, grandmothers, and women awaiting children; Joachim stands as patron of fathers and grandfathers. And in 2021 Pope Francis planted a new feast beside the old one: the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, kept each year on the fourth Sunday of July, deliberately set beside the memorial of the two people who prove that no one is too old, too hidden, or too ordinary to be essential to the plan of God.
Keeping their day
This one is simple, and it may cost you a phone call. If your grandparents are living, call them; the conversation is the devotion. If they have died, pray a decade of the Rosary for their souls, on beads they may well have prayed themselves. And if there is a child anywhere in your reach, hand something on: teach a Hail Mary, tell a saint's story, be the St. Anne in somebody's painting. Or simply pause and ask their help:
Sts. Joachim and Anne, who raised the Mother of God in an ordinary house, bless our grandparents, living and dead, teach us to honor what they handed down, and make us faithful in passing it on. Amen.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who were Sts. Joachim and Anne?
The parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the grandparents of Jesus. The Church has venerated them by these names since her early centuries, honoring the home in which the Mother of God was raised.
Are Joachim and Anne in the Bible?
No. The Gospels do not name Mary's parents. Their names come from ancient Christian tradition, recorded as early as the second century. What Scripture and the faith affirm is the reality behind the names: Mary had parents, and the Immaculate Conception took place in her mother's womb.
When is the memorial of Sts. Joachim and Anne?
July 26 on the General Roman Calendar. In years when July 26 falls on a Sunday, the Sunday liturgy takes precedence, though the saints may still be honored in private devotion. The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, instituted by Pope Francis in 2021, is kept each year on the fourth Sunday of July, beside their feast.
What are Sts. Joachim and Anne patrons of?
St. Anne is the patroness of mothers, grandmothers, and women hoping for children, with major shrines including Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec. St. Joachim is a patron of fathers and grandfathers. Together they are patrons of grandparents.
